Look again

Search Folders are a kind of new user interface for the Advanced Find functionality, which has been with us through several Outlook generations. The thing that makes Search Folders new and unique is the possibility for defined search criteria to be saved and represented through a kind of virtual folder in the Outlook client. What this means is it gives us a virtual folder view of the content in one or more "normal" folders, for which a search criteria has been defined.

Saturday, June 25, 2016

Outline then do

Always a good idea. Pre-plan and then do. Too often projects are started without a plan and too often plans are made and not carried through.

"When creating a website there are several different tools and methods available, but it is important to plan the steps. This guide will help outline the important steps required for website creation and promotion. Information in this document should help readers avoid many pitfalls and save time throughout the process."

Friday, June 24, 2016

One Stop OneLook

A plethora of punditry

"If you have a word for which you'd like a definition or translation, we'll quickly shuttle you to the web-based dictionaries that define or translate that word. If you don't know how to spell the word, we'll help you do that too. No word is too obscure: More than 21 million words in more than 1096 online dictionaries are indexed by the OneLook search engine.

What can you do at OneLook.com?

Define words:

Type a word into the search box on the front page to retrieve a list of dictionary web sites that define that word. Be sure "Find definitions" is selected.

Translate words:

Type a word into the search box and select "Find translations" to retrieve a list of dictionary web sites that have translations of that word into other languages.

Find words:

Type a pattern consisting of letters and the wildcards * and ? to retrieve a list of words matching your pattern."

Wednesday, June 22, 2016

Fix the box

There is a border around your title page, but the bottom line doesn't print. Usually the reason is that the bottom line (or on a landscape page, the right border) falls within your printer's unprintable area. Here are some suggestions for finding just where that area is and how to adjust your border so that it will print.

Find your printer's unprintable area

Your printer manual may specify the unprintable areas. Inkjet printers, in particular, often have a large unprintable area at the bottom of the page.

The border is measured from your text margins, not from your actual text. So, if your bottom border still doesn't print, increase the size of your bottom margin, then adjust the other margins as needed for a balanced appearance.

Monday, June 20, 2016

Not Birders - Butters?

North American Butterfly Association
The North American Butterfly Association (NABA) is, by far, the largest group of people in North America (Canada, United States, and Mexico) interested in butterflies.

Here are some quotes from the FAQ:

How many kinds of butterflies are there?

There are approximately 20,000 species of butterflies in the world. About 725 species have occurred in North American north of Mexico, with about 575 of these occurring regularly in the lower 48 states of the United States, and with about 275 species occurring regularly in Canada. Roughly 2000 species are found in Mexico.

How many kinds of butterflies can I find near where I live?

In most parts of the United States, you can find roughly 100 species of butterflies near your home. The number is higher in the Rio Grande Valley and some parts of the West, somewhat less in New England. As one goes northward into Canada the number decreases, while as one goes southward into Mexico the number greatly increases.

How long does a butterfly live?

An adult butterfly probably has an average life-span of approximately one month. In the wild, most butterflies' lives are shorter than this because of the dangers provided by predators, disease, and large objects, such as automobiles. The smallest butterflies may live only a week or so, while a few butterflies, such as Monarchs, Mourning Cloaks and tropical heliconians, can live up to nine months.

Saturday, June 18, 2016

The bounty that is a right click.

Right-click your calendar and choose Open in New Window. When you do, Outlook opens a new window for your calendar and you can toggle back and forth using the Windows taskbar

Right-click the message in the message view window and select Options. The box "Request a read receipt for this message" under Tracking Options will have a check in it if the message was sent with a read receipt

Right click in the middle of the file name if there is a file attached. You will see the option box with the choice of Print, Save As etc…

Right the name in the email you receive if you want to add to the contact list. click on Add to Contacts in the context menu and entry for the contact will open with the name and e-mail address already filled in. Fill in the other details if required and save the contact

Right-click the folder you want to search in the Folder List or Outlook Bar and select Advanced Find

Right click on the Day planner's time scale to change the scale or access Time Zone settings.

Right click Personal Folders and choose Properties. Select Folder size to see the size of your PST

Right click on any Day/Week/Month view for a host of options, include Go to Day...

Right click on folders (including shortcuts on the Outlook bar) to see folder options

Right -click the folder you want to Archive, and then click Properties on the shortcut menu. Click on the AutoArchive tab. Specify whether you want to archive this folder and it so, whether to use the default AutoArchive settings or your own settings

Right click on any white pace in any folder view to access view options. (Double click in white space to create new items)

Thursday, June 16, 2016

Casino tutoring

An education will probably increase your lifetime earnings. Why not make that probability work for you? Or not.

Teaching probability can be challenging because the mathematical formulas often are too abstract and complex for the students to fully grasp the underlying meaning and effect of the concepts. Games can provide a way to address this issue. For example, the game of roulette can be an exciting application for teaching probability concepts.In this paper, we implement a model of roulette in a spreadsheet that can simulate outcomes of various betting strategies. The simulations can be analyzed to gain better insights into the corresponding probability structures. We use the model to simulate a particular betting strategy known as the bet-doubling, or Martingale, strategy. This strategy is quite popular and is often erroneously perceived as a winning strategy even though the probability analysis shows that such a perception is incorrect.The simulation allows us to present the true implications of such a strategy for a player with a limited betting budget and relate the results to the underlying theoretical probability structure. The overall validation of the model, its use for teaching, including its application to analyze other types of betting strategies are discussed.

Sunday, June 12, 2016

Microsoft to the rescue

Guided Help is a program that you can download from some Microsoft Knowledge Base articles. Depending on the task, Guided Help can automatically perform the task that is described in the article, or Guided Help can guide you through the steps to perform the task yourself.

Guided Help performs the steps by interacting directly with the Microsoft Windows user interface, or by using functions that are included with Guided Help. For steps that interact with the user interface, you see the steps occur on the screen.

For some tasks, you can select to run Guided Help in one of the following ways.

Do it automatically: The whole task is automatically completed while you watch. You might be prompted for input if input is required.

Show me step-by-step: Guided Help points on the screen to where you must click or type to perform the task.

Saturday, June 11, 2016

How long is a month?

When you use the banker's DAYS360 function to calculate the number of days between two dates, you can get an odd answer.

If you use the DAYS360 function with a start date of February 28 and with an end date of March 28, a value of 28 days is returned.
You expect a value of 30 days to be returned for every full month. (12*30=360)

This behavior may occur if you use the U.S. method, also known as the NASD method, with the DAYS360 function.

To work around this behavior, use the European method with the DAYS360 function. With the European method starting dates and ending dates that occur on the 31st of a month become equal to the 30th of the same month. To use the European method with the DAYS360 function, use the following syntax:

Wednesday, June 08, 2016

Save shoe leather

When you add controls to forms and reports you'll often need to add several of the same type, such as when creating a group of option buttons or a series of unbound text boxes. In such cases, repeatedly moving between the Toolbox and the object you're designing can quickly become tedious.

Fortunately, you can make the process easier. When you select the control you want to add from the Toolbox, double-click the control button (like double-clicking the Format Painter). Doing so lets you add as many controls of that type as you need. When you finish, click the button again to disable the control tool.

Tuesday, June 07, 2016

Go back to a simpler time

There can come a time when a document becomes too complicated and the formatting appears more like mud.

For most documents it's a good idea to use styles. These help standardize the formatting for the whole document. But what happens when the paragraph or word doesn't appear in the correct style? While a style is set for each paragraph, it can be overridden by separate formatting for all or part of the paragraph. When you paste in text from another document or web page, it will bring with it the formatting on the source page.

Here's a quick shortcut that will remove all additional formatting from a selection and leave you with normal formatting.

Saturday, June 04, 2016

May you never need it

The Windows Memory Diagnostic tests the Random Access Memory (RAM) on your computer for errors. The diagnostic includes a comprehensive set of memory tests. If you are experiencing problems while running Windows, you can use the diagnostic to determine whether the problems are caused by failing hardware, such as RAM or the memory system of your motherboard.

Windows Memory Diagnostic is designed to be easy and fast. On most configurations, you can download the diagnostic, read the documentation, run the test and complete the first test pass in less than 30 minutes.

Friday, June 03, 2016

Only for the brave

Access tries to prevent user errors that would have calamitous effects on data or an application by throwing up confirmation boxes before potentially dangerous actions. This provides users with an out before committing irreversible changes to the database.

Although you probably want these confirmation dialog boxes in place for end-users, you may find that they slow your work down too much. You may, also, click through the dialog boxes so quickly that they're essentially ineffective.

If you have a programmer's version of hubris, you can prevent Access from displaying confirmation dialog boxes.

To do so, choose Tools>Options from the menu bar and click on the Edit/Find tab. Then, clear the appropriate check boxes in the Confirm panel that correspond to the dialog boxes you want to suppress.

Finally, click OK.
In 2007+, click the Office logo and then Access Options

Thursday, June 02, 2016

Pick your own location

If you need to change or just locate where Outlook stores its information:

"With Outlook closed, open Control Panel and double-click Mail. (Type Mail in the Search box.)
In the Mail Setup dialog box, click Data Files and then click Open Folder. This opens Windows Explorer using the folder where your Outlook Personal Stores (PST) file is located. The default name is Outlook.pst. Back up that file, which contains all your messages, rules, contacts, and appointments."

Wednesday, June 01, 2016

Protect your work

The Microsoft Knowledge Base article KB 293445 Has a list of references to protection information.

Microsoft Excel provides multiple layers of protection to allow you to control who can access and change your data:

Worksheet protection: You can protect elements on a worksheet (for example, cells with formulas) from all user access, or you can grant individual users access to the ranges that you specify.

Workbook-level protection: You can apply protection to workbook elements, and you can protect a workbook file from being viewed and edited. If a workbook is shared, you can protect it from being returned to exclusive use and prevent the change history from being deleted.

... articles address some of the more frequently asked questions about workbook and worksheet protection in Excel:

How can I grant only a few users access to a range in my worksheet?

Why are users not allowed to edit the ranges that I established permissions for?

What new features are available in workbook protection?

Why don't the permissions that I set on ranges in my worksheets carry over to Windows 98 computers?